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Saturday, June 16, 2012

Work begins on Innovation Park

We knew this day would come, those of us who have been
following developments on the County Grounds since the sale of 89 acres to the
UWM Real Estate Foundation by Milwaukee County. The backhoes and bulldozers
have arrived and pipelines are being laid. Innovation Park is envisioned as an
engineering research campus and business incubator. Despite some lingering
concerns about the state of the economy as well as the fate of wildlife
habitats, construction is beginning. The first phase is to install (taxpayer
funded) utilities: water, sewer, power lines.

For the many people who have gotten used to walking their
dogs on what has been a uniquely unbounded prairie landscape – if they haven’t
been aware of the political machinations and financial deals that have led to
this day – there may well be some shock when they first encounter these scenes.
This is just the beginning. Once the utilities have been laid, work will begin
on the roads.

If you follow my blog even occasionally you know that I am
among those who have paid close attention to the County Grounds. This day has
had a long gestation, beginning really back in 1997 when then County Executive
Tom Ament proposed selling nearly the entire County Grounds for commercial development.
Opposition led to compromise and, long story short, large portions of the
grounds have remained open space while this corner was slated for what we now
see happening.

Still, we who value the wind in our faces and the sounds of
the sparrows will find it hard to face the now visible manifestation of our
compromises. The following email arrived in my inbox yesterday from Tim Vargo, a fellow
nature lover:

“It was with
great sadness that I [ventured onto the] County Grounds this morning. A
landscape so open you could imagine buffalo grazing. The soundtrack [to
these scenes] was bobolinks and dicksissel, Savannah sparrows and meadowlarks,
willow and least flycatchers, and a possible pair of breeding Henslow's
sparrows. All in the name of progress.”

It is my hope that those who have been granted
responsibility for constructing a campus on this much-loved landscape will do
so with a minimum of bravado and maximum sensitivity, not only to the landscape
itself but also to the needs and feelings of the people who delight in its
spacious beauty.

Discovery Parkway, the main road through Innovation Park, will run through here.

In moments like this I often pick up one of my volumes on
Thoreau for solace and insight. I am rarely disappointed. A hundred and fifty
years ago he anticipated nearly every feeling and experience I’ve had at one
time or another. Here’s a brief passage from Thoreau’s journal that I came
across this morning:

“The perception of beauty is a moral test.”

For more on recent events concerning the County Grounds – or,
more specifically, the Eschweiler buildings – go to Wauwatosa Patch.